Generalisation of modified interpretive bias across tasks and domains

Abstract

Patients with an anxiety disorder are characterised by a tendency to impose threatening interpretations on ambiguous information. Past research has examined the causal relationship between experimentally modified interpretive bias and its effects on anxiety. Effective modification of interpretation bias is typically shown on two specific tasks: an on-line reaction-time task and a post-training “recognition task”. Both tasks measure accessibility of negative or positive interpretations in a specific domain (social anxiety). From a theoretical and clinical perspective, it is important to know whether the effect of altered interpretation bias generalises to other tasks or domains. Therefore, in the present experiment, both the generalisation of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) to other tasks (a vignette and a video task) and the transfer to another domain (academic performance) were investigated. Results showed that the modified interpretive bias did not generalise to the other tasks, while it did transfer to another domain.